Lady Army corporal hurdles 2025 Bar exam

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January 20, 2026 | 6:47pm

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Officials and personnel of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division gave a lady corporal traditional military honors on January 19 for passing the 2025 Bar examinations through her own hard work

Cpl. Michelle Lania, from the Judge Advocate General’s Office in Camp Siongco in Datu Odin Sinsuat in Maguindanao del Norte, where 6th ID’s headquarters is located, was the only non-officer, from among many members of different branches of the Armed Forces, who passed the September 7 to 14, 2025 Bar exams.

“We are mighty proud of her,” 6th ID’s commander, Major Gen. Jose Vladimir Cagara, who led Monday’s symbolic rite at Camp Siongco, told reporters on Tuesday.

The event was also partly dedicated to the newly-promoted officers from different units of 6^th ID, touted as the largest Army division in Mindanao, covering the adjoining Maguindanao del Sur, Maguindanao del Norte, Cotabato, South Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat, South Cotabato and Malungon provinces and the cities of Cotabato, Tacurong, Koronadal and General Santos.

Five lawyers in the 80-seat Bangsamoro regional parliament, Naguib Sinarimbo, Jet Lim, Suharto Ambolodto, Nabil Tan and Ishak Mastura, separately lauded Lania, who, for them, had set an example that can inspire struggling law students from rural areas.

"Despite the hardships of being a soldier and a law student, she made good with her ambition to become a lawyer," Mastura said.

“She deserves a tap on her shoulder for that. I can just imagine the difficulties and challenges that confronted her while studying law and serving as a soldier at the same time,” Lim, spokesperson of the regional parliament in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, said.

Lania said she did not undergo a full-time formal Bar exams review course owing to the difficulty of attending it while serving as an Army corporal.

“What I did was procure review materials via online transactions and studied all by myself,” Lania said.

Enlisted in the Army as a private in 2014, Lania, who is an Ilongga, born on August 18, 1989, first finished midwifery at the Notre Dame Hospital School of Midwifery in Cotabato City years later as a working student.

She belongs to a virtually marginalized family in Barangay Malu-ao in Pigcawayan town in the first district of Cotabato, some 40 kilometers north of Camp Siongco. Her father, Pablito, a lowly farmer, passed away in 2022, leaving her mom, Teresita to tend to their family alone.

“My having become a lawyer is a gift from God. I promise to do my added work now as a lawyer and a soldier to the best I can,” Lania said.

Lania joined the Philippine Army in 2014 as a private and, subsequently, graduated in 2024 from the law school the Notre Dame University in Cotabato City, which is owned by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate congregation.

Sinarimbo, who had served as local government minister of BARMM prior to his appointment as a member of the regional parliament in March last year by President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., said he is so fascinated with how Lania became a lawyer.

"It's a story worth telling to other law students who are from poor families," Sinarimbo said.